


Drops that accumulate

by Stonehill



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fix it of sorts, Fix-It, Friendship, Post-War, Pre-confession, Romance, communication is key
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonehill/pseuds/Stonehill
Summary: “Wait.”Katara is across the courtyard before she can stop herself, her hand catching his wrist even as he’s turning away.The flower falls to a puddle behind them, discarded and forgotten, a lonely blue reflected in the surface of the water.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 106





	Drops that accumulate

It rains in the Capital City of the Fire Nation in the days after Fire Lord Zuko’s coronation. Heavy and unstoppable it washes away the ash and the last fires, the hurts and marks of the last battles. For days and days it continues to fall in sheets of greys and blues. It steals away the colours of all the war banners and military uniforms, but plants grow and flourish with life where death cannot, leaving the world a sparkling place of colour and serene cheer.

And the people of the Fire Nation find real joy in the rain. Warm both in body and spirit they are not imprisoned by the water; instead hundreds and hundreds of umbrellas and parasols spread under that rain, sheets are unfolded in the markets to protect fresh produce and wares. And life returns to the Capital, with laughter and conversation, where war had once existed and governed.

Only the palace remains a silent presence on the map, unmoved and unimpressed by the rains that fall. Politics and diplomacy rule in the halls and the chambers in every waking moment, as the new Fire Lord and the Avatar negotiate with representatives of petty lords and foreign nations. The outdoor halls, gardens and parapets remain empty save for a lone servant delivering a message, or a guard keeping watch and peace.

Uncharacteristically, a lone waterbender is the only one to go through the motions of her craft for hours every day. The rain dances to her silent song, accompanying her in her every movement, round her body and in her arms, quickly soaking through her hair and clothes so that she might as well be one with the water.

Katara dances silently, peacefully from one motion to the next, taking her time with every step, every bend of her limbs, her muscles tensing and untensing with the water. Round and round she moves, guiding the rain from its path to follow her hands, and gently letting it go as more drops fall, balancing the weight of the water so it never becomes too much.

A boy joins her silently, his yellow robes already soaked through and clinging to his skin. He steps easily into the path of her movements, never crossing her, but counter-balancing her steps, completing her movements.

They share a smile.

The rain glides easily over Aang’s bald head, following the path of his arrow, and down into his face. But he never lets it bother him, hums a tune as he dances with her, bare feet light against the wet cobble.

As they dance the water they’ve collected separately joins into a single entity, which they move back and forth across the courtyard, through the archways of the gardens. And as it weaves between obstacles, so they weave back and forth, closer and further away, as water will do; pushing and pulling, they never touch, but move in sync with one another, the water connecting them across the distance.

Finally, they move the water up and up, spreading it out into a dome that keeps the rest of the rain out.

“What are you doing out here?” Katara says, laughter in her voice. She lets go of the dome, trusting Aang to keep it up, to bend the water out of his clothes. “You’re going to catch your death.”

Aang cracks an easy smile. “I could say the same to you,” he says, repeating her motions so they both stand dry beneath the rain.

Katara thinks about arguing. She doesn’t have diplomatic meetings lined up, or duties to the world to keep harmony, to be the impartial judge in difficult negotiations for peace. She can afford getting wet in this hot land; there isn’t much cold to weaken her here and if a waterbender can’t get soaked then she isn’t much of a waterbender to begin with. But the exercise has left her in a light mood, a smile stretching on her lips in spite of herself, and she doesn’t want to ruin it.

“Good point,” she allows, finally.

They share a smile, and then a laugh.

And it isn’t just Katara who feels lighter; she can see it in the way he holds himself, in the relaxation of his shoulder, the way his eyes glow. He’s let go a great burden he’d carried for nearly as long as she’s known him; guilt and shame and self-hatred, the fear of failure, of letting everyone down.

All of it he’s let go of in his victory, and now more than ever he reminds her of air personified; light on his feet and easy to a laugh, carrying himself with a lighthearted dignity that makes him feel almost like an adult, though he should be so far from it.

Confidence suits him.

And then, as easily as it had come, it washes out of him.

“I…” he begins, and then stops.

He glances about for something to latch on to, scratching the back of his neck in an awkward motion.

Finally, his eyes land on a grove of blue lillies and he picks one up to bring back to her. “Here,” he says, smile returning to the shadows of his lips. “I owe you an apology.”

Katara, too astonished to protest, accepts it before she realises what she’s done.

She looks from the blue flower cradled in her hands to the boy in front of her. “Why?”

“I…” Aang looks down and away, touching the back of his neck as he tries to find the right words. “I was so focused I didn’t get to think about it before I was looking for you after the fight with Ozai. Your battle with Azula. We both survived, but it’s not as if that were a given _before,_ and I—“

Aang’s face distorts with anger and regret.

“I should’ve thought about that,” he says, “before I started arguing with you all the time.”

“Aang,” she says, hugging herself as she speaks, “there are always two people on either side of an argument. It isn’t a one-person interaction.”

He cracks a smile. “I don’t know,” he jokes, “I feel like I argue with myself all the time.”

Which has them both laughing again, breaking the tension a little.

And Katara thinks she understands him, if only a little. She knows she would have been angry with herself forever if Aang hadn’t come back from his battle with the Fire Lord, but somehow it feels like an unreal, impossible scenario. Aang failing in the end? Aand dying?

She can’t imagine it.

“What?” she says, leaning down a little to catch his eye. “Did you think I wasn’t going to make it? Did you doubt me? When I never doubted you?”

Aang’s cheeks flush at the compliment, and he retracts quickly, flailing his arms. “No, that’s not what I—“ the wind he’s brought up in his embarrassment dies abruptly, as his mind catches up and he narrows his eyes. “Hey, wait a minute. You didn’t exactly agree with me that I could find another way to defeat Ozai.”

Katara crosses her arms. “Well, just because none of us could see it at the time, doesn’t mean when you vanished I didn’t _make a choice_.”

“Oh.”

Aang deflates, his shoulders relaxing and he looks down to hide the smile touching his lips, bashful and sweet. “I didn’t think about it like that,” he murmurs. And then he narrows his eyes. “And look. Here we go again. I meant to apologise to you, and I end up picking another fight.”

This is what she likes about Aang. Peace is in his spirit, in every breath he exhales. It’s easy to get caught up in his cheerful pace, and even when they fight it’s just as easy to get out of the awkward position and fall back on safer ground because he doesn’t hold grudges. He doesn’t let his anger simmer for long periods of time. He would rather just be happy and to share his joy with others.

“It’s okay,” she says.

And Katara—

Katara just wants to bask in that easy joy.

“No, it’s not,” he counters, head flying up and catching her eyes with a stubborn fire, “you give me too easy a time, Katara. And I get selfish. I don’t think things through, and I didn’t think about your feelings. And even when I could’ve lost you, I just assumed everything would be fine.”

Katara opens and closes her mouth, her hands pausing half way towards a placating motion. And she wonders if she should pull through with it, just to spite him.

_Don’t tell me what to do._

But she knows he isn’t done speaking, and like a storm, he won’t calm before all the wind is out of him, until all the words he’s kept bottled up have been spoken.

And yet, when she thinks of his words, she cannot help but to tilt her head and smile. “So you _did_ have faith I’d be able to win in the end.”

Aang glowers at her. “And here I thought _Air Nomads_ were the ones, who excelled in misdirection,” he complains sullenly.

“Then,” Katara says, exhales, and gives in, “what is it you’re trying to say?”

“I—“ Aang hesitates, his cheeks flushing. And he looks down, defeated. “I’m saying I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose what we have right now, and I’m afraid my selfish attachment nearly destroyed it at the worst possible moment.”

_Oh._

Katara’s cheeks heat under the rain, and now Aang isn’t the only one looking down at his hands. He’s brought it up so many times now she should’ve expected it to come up again when the war was over. An ultimatum. A question she cannot answer yet.

A question she’s too afraid to answer.

“I realise I’ve put you in an impossible position,” Aang says, “with no reassurance that if you told me no that it wouldn’t ruin our friendship. So I forced my feelings on you without consideration, and I’m sorry.”

His words are slow and sincere, and his voice slowly draws her eyes up to look at him, to watch him as he lays his own conviction bare. And as he bows respectfully to her, she wonders if she will become his new regret.

It hurts.

More than anything the expression in his eyes, of pain and confusion, of an attachment he cannot let go of, is the one who hurts her the most.

“It’s a new world,” he says, when he raises his head again, smiling for her sake. “But this, at least, doesn’t have to change.”

“I—“

Katara looks at him, and down at her trembling hands, still holding the flower. She wonders if he will leave her in the rain, wonders if he really speaks the truth when he says they can go _back._

What is back anyway when there is no war anymore?

“Wait.”

Katara is across the courtyard before she can stop herself, her hand catching his wrist even as he’s turning away.

The flower falls to a puddle behind them, discarded and forgotten, a lonely blue reflected in the surface of the water.

“Promise me,” she says, her heart dancing a wild beat in her chest. “Promise me that when I’m ready to speak you won’t run away, that until I have an answer you won’t run away from me.”

Aang stares for a long moment down at their joined hands; the differences in their skin, the warmth that connects them. And when he looks up at her there is a smile tugged away in the corners of his lips, playful victory dancing in his grey eyes.

“Are you telling me to have hope?”

And Katara—

Katara knows he is pretty, knows that when he smiles the world lights up. She knows his happiness is contagious, a dancing, singing wind that catches you unexpectedly and drags you along until you are singing in tune with him, forgetting that there was another path at all.

But it still catches her off guard, that smile, full of confidence and careful happiness. Her heart skips in her chest and her cheeks overheat, and Katara—

Water falls from the sky, splashing them both and soaking through their clothes. Cool and overwhelming it washes away any and all fires, and Katara and Aang gasp at the shock of it.

“Well, that definitely _wasn’t_ on purpose,” she says, letting go of his hand to push her loosened fringe out of her face.

When their eyes meet across the distance and the rain begins to fall around them anew, their laughter dances with the roar of the flood that washes them away.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of thoughts about the ending of ATLA and a lot of criticism of the writing in those last few episodes - esp in relation to Aang and Katara.  
> This was meant to be a much longer fix it sort of fic to settle my brain, but I talked too much to other people about it, and I'm in the finishing month of my dissertation for my MA of English lit, so I've decided to drop it.  
> Besides this works as a pretty good scene all on its own and I wanted to share it!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading it! I hope you enjoyed it!


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